Displaying an extra measure of hospitality, Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi had a thoughtful gift for House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, last week, even as he made himself tough for Boehner’s delegation to find.
Boehner was with a Republican congressional delegation to four Middle East countries last Friday, and was en route from Tunis to Tripoli for a meeting with Gaddafi, when their plane was suddenly diverted 350 miles to the city of Surt.
Then, after loading into a motorcade and hitting the expressway, the delegation’s vehicles abruptly stopped in the middle of the road for 15 minutes as they were “being summoned by the colonel.” From there, Boehner told reporters at a lunch on Thursday, they headed south “past the sheep, past the goats, past the camels, past security” and through the “raw desert” to a tent in the “middle of nowhere” where Gaddafi awaited them.
After the meeting began, Boehner said, Gaddafi summoned an assistant, who came back three minutes later with a pair of sunglasses. The colonel, who was wearing shades himself the whole time, dutifully removed them from their case, polished them and handed them to the minority leader. “Desert is not kind to blue eyes,” Gaddafi told him.
“They’re nice glasses, but they don’t fit,” said Boehner, who added that while he kept them, he doesn’t believe they violated the gift ban.
